Folks, we hardly ever pass along material we find on the Internet or in e-mail. But today, thanks to an e-mail alert from our good friends at the Nevada Republican Party, we read a slam on U.S. Sen. Harry Reid written by The Washington Times’ Tony Blankley we felt worthy of sharing.

Why? Two reasons. One, it was written by someone with an appreciation for history, especially World War II history, which is a passion we share. Two, it was written by someone whose conclusions and analytical ability are so lacking, it simply could not pass by without a response. Our comments follow the text. Please enjoy.

By Tony Blankley, The Washington Times

(Published September 13, 2006)

“LONDON, 18 June 1940 — The following are the chamber remarks of the fictional Lord Harold Reid (whose fictional grandson, in the 21st century would become leader of the fictional Democratic Party in the U.S. Senate).

“‘I regret to have to stand up tonight, on the day of defeat at the hands of the Germans of our French ally’s armies at Sedan and on the Meuse River to observe that on this solemn occasion Prime Minister Winston Churchill has chosen to politicize and cheapen the moment. Permit me to perform just a brief exegesis of his speech, which his right-wing Press Baron friend Lord Murdoch has quickly labeled “The Finest Hour” speech in the London Times.

“‘Right out the gate Churchill starts making political excuses when he says: ‘There are many who would hold an inquest in the House of Commons on the conduct of the Governments…This would be a foolish and pernicious process…Of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.’

“‘Balderdash. Churchill can’t get out of it so neatly. We need to hold hearings to determine exactly who is at fault in the government. There must be no cover up for those who deserve a dressing down. Herr Hitler will just have to wait until we have decided what is what.

“‘For example, Mr. Churchill glibly states: ‘During the last few days we have successfully brought off the great majority of the troops we had on the line of communication in France; and seven-eighths of troops we have sent to France since the beginning of the war — that is to say, about 350,000 out of the 400,000 men — are safely back in this country.’

“‘Outrageous! What the rather too well-lunched Mr. Churchill doesn’t mention is that he has squandered and lost 50,000 of Britain’s finest men on the filthy frog- and snail-infested fields of France.

“Protecting democracy in France? Pish and piffle. Two Empires and three broken republics in three generations. Democracy is wasted on the French.

“Worse, he has only created Nazi enemies where before there were none. Let the record before the House of Lords show that when we declared war on Germany last September there wasn’t a single Nazi soldier in France. Now, there are over a million — while 50,000 of our best lay dead or terribly injured. Churchill’s cheap argument that it is better to fight the Nazis over there in France so we won’t have to fight them here at home — is coming a cropper. According to Reuters’s Berlin desk, proud young German men started lining up at the army recruiting stations when they read in Der Stuermer that Churchill had Jewish friends who were egging him on to fight Hitler.

“And by the way, since Churchill’s war started there seem to be a lot of Jews in London. Hitler’s got the Jews on the run in Germany. Why can’t we do the same thing over here? Oh, dear. Uh, uh. I seem to have digressed from my prepared remarks. That is neither here nor there. Well, actually, let the record reflect that I am not an anti-Semite. I’m just against the new Jewish arrivals — the, oh, how shall I say, er, neojews.

“But, to return to Churchill’s political speech, consider his cynical, political closing remarks: ‘What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.

“‘Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”‘

“Now that’s just fear-mongering, plain and simple. He’s trying to scare the British public in to supporting his failed policies. Oh, there may be a few men around Hitler who are a little rough. But sinking into the abyss of a new Dark Age? Winston needs a new speechwriter.

“And while he’s about it, he can just drop that Christian civilization business. There is no excuse to insult the several non-Christians in England. That’s just Churchill politically playing to his rural, religious base. And by the way, the last time I saw Winston on his knees, he wasn’t praying. He was looking for a dropped corkscrew.

“Well, that about sums it up. At this solemn hour, I just felt that Churchill’s brazen political stunt of a speech needed a dignified response.

“I think I’m finished now.”

Blankley may be finished, but we’re not! Here are some things to consider in the wake of this piece.

1.) No matter how hard we try, we cannot picture President George W. Bush as Sir Winston Churchill. While Bush is glib, Churchill was serious. While Bush is incurious, Churchill was a scholar. While Bush seems to have no real knowledge of tactics or history, Churchill was, himself, a warrior (he attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and served in the British army, where, unlike our president, he saw action in combat). While Bush stumbles with English, Churchill was the language’s master.

2.) Churchill’s nation was attacked by Germany. In response, Churchill attacked Germany. He didn’t attack Canada, or Cuba, or any other nation that didn’t start a war against his country. He attacked the Germans, wherever they were found. Bush, by contrast, decided to attack Iraq, a nation that had nothing to do with the attack on our nation, and made a fundamental error that has bungled the true war on terror ever since.

3.) Blankley, and the Republicans, seem desperate to avoid an inquiry into the conduct of the war in Iraq. (To quarrel between the past and present, thus losing the future.) But the fact is, an inquiry is long overdue. Only by exposing the mistakes — and the false information — that underpinned the war in Iraq can we avoid making further, similar mistakes in the future. Churchill feared a divisive debate would detract from the success of the war; our president fears the congressional oversight will expose the failures of his.

4.) Churchill fought a war, in part, to restore democracy to a country where it had long and deep roots, France. Bush is trying — perhaps nobly, perhaps in futility — to create democracy in a country where it’s an alien concept. Moreover, Churchill was reacting to the invasion of a sovereign nation — France — by an enemy, the way President George H.W. Bush did during the last legitimate war in Iraq, in 1991. By contrast, Bush is now the invader and occupier of a sovereign nation, having attacked a nation that did not initiate hostilities against the United States or, at this time in its history at least, any of its neighbors.

5.) Of course, it hardly need be said Blankley’s anti-Semitic slur against Reid in the above is dishonorable in the extreme. Reid has never said or done anything to merit this kind of charge, and it’s outside the realm of legitimate debate. How odd it is that Republicans only stand up for people based on their race when they are losing the argument at hand. Here’s a clue, Mr, Blankley: When we liberals say “neoconservative,” we intend it not as a slur on Jews (to be sure, many neoconservatives are not Jews at all). We intend it as a slur against the bankrupt and disproved philosophy of the neoconservatives.

6.) When dissecting the politics of fear, it’s important to remember a simple truth: Al-Qaida is not the Nazis! It may have the same fascist dreams of global conquest, but there are plenty of people around who do. Neither they, nor al-Qaida, have the means to carry it out. Hitler did. Al-Qaida is a determined and murderous enemy, to be sure, but it is not a nation in itself, and it lacks the infrastructure for global conquest.

In fact, the most important part of its infrastructure — the poverty, hopelessness and hatred that makes recruiting soldiers so easy — is within our power to change, without firing a single .223-caliber round from an M-16A1 rifle. Eliminating that poverty, helping create jobs, build hospitals, sewers and reliable electrical systems, would go a long way toward showing the reasonable people of the Middle East that America isn’t the Great Satan — instead of just insisting that in sound bite speeches or op-ed columns.

Churchill faced a much different threat, and his words still ring true today. But we prefer the words of another World War II era leader, a president of our country, who once said, “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.” (And, once again, try as we might, we cannot picture the current president in the role of FDR, either.)

7.) President Bush has said the war on terror is a much different war than the conventional conflicts in the past. On this, we agree. Unfortunately, from there we radically part ways. We believe we need to fight the war on terror by targeting its initiators, the terrorists. We need to hunt them in the hills, deny them financing (which we’ve apparently done well), break up their cells and kill or capture as many of their leaders as we can. And we need to do it continually.

Tell us, how does invading Iraq solve that, besides giving terrorists something to shoot at? Bush has tried many times to answer that question, and failed miserably each time. So, too, his supporters, like Blankley. We sympathize with them; it’s hard to win when you’re on the wrong side.